Williams: Blacks should reject liberals

Sometimes I wonder when black people will reject the patronizing insults of white progressives and their black handmaidens.

After CNN’s Piers Morgan’s interview with the key witness in the George Zimmerman trial, he said: “Rachel Jeantel is not uneducated. She’s a smart cookie.” That’s a remarkable conclusion. Here’s a 19-year-old young lady, still in high school, who cannot read cursive and appears to be barely literate. Morgan may have meant Jeantel is smart — for a black person.

Progressives treat blacks as victims in need of kid glove treatment and special favors, such as racial quotas and preferences. This approach has been tried in education for decades and has revealed itself a failure. I say it’s time we explore other approaches.

One approach is suggested by sports. Blacks excel — perhaps dominate is a better word — in sports such as basketball, football and boxing to such an extent that blacks are 80 percent of professional basketball players, 66 percent of professional football players and, for decades, have dominated most professional boxing categories.

These outcomes should raise several questions. In sports, when have you heard a coach explain or excuse a black player’s poor performance by blaming it on a “legacy of slavery” or on the player being raised in a single-parent household? When have you heard sports standards called racist or culturally biased? I have yet to hear a player, much less a coach, speak such nonsense.

In fact, the standards of performance in sports are just about the most ruthless anywhere. Excuses are not tolerated. Think about it. What happens to a player, black or white, who doesn’t come up to a college basketball or football coach’s standards? He’s off the team. Players know this, and they make every effort to excel.

By the way, blacks also excel in the entertainment industry — another industry in which there’s ruthless dog-eat-dog competition.

Seeing as blacks have demonstrated an ability to thrive in an environment of ruthless competition and demanding standards, there might be some gains from a similar school environment. Maybe we ought to have some schools in which youngsters are loaded up with homework, frequent tests and demanding, top-notch teachers. In such schools, there would be no excuses for anything. Youngsters cut the mustard, or they’re kicked out and put into some other school. I’m betting that a significant number of black youngsters would prosper in such an environment, just as they prosper in the highly competitive sports and entertainment environments.

Progressives’ agenda calls for not only excuse-making, but also dependency. Nowhere is this more obvious than it is in their efforts to get as many Americans as they can to be dependent on food stamps.

Government handouts probably go a long way toward explaining the unprecedented number of Americans, close to 90 million, who are no longer looking for work.

This is all a part of the progressive agenda to hook Americans, particularly black Americans, on government handouts. In future elections, they will be able to claim that anyone who campaigns on cutting taxing and spending is a racist. That’s what Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., said in denouncing the Republican 1994 call for tax cuts. He said, “It’s not ‘spic’ or ‘[filtered word]’ anymore. (Instead,) they say, ‘Let’s cut taxes.’”

When black Americans finally recognize the harm of the progressive agenda, I’m betting they will be the nation’s most conservative people, for who else has been harmed by progressivism as much?

Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University.

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Much of what Mr. Williams says makes sense, but some of his data ought to have a big footnote. Most of us would agree that having schools with "homework, frequent tests and demanding, top-notch teachers" would help more students to succeed, no matter what their race. This would be even more likely if resources were available to help at-risk students beyond normal school hours, to provide the support and encouragement too often lacking in single-parent or otherwise stressed home settings. How students would be selected for these special schools would be critical, and funding for the extra services would be difficult to secure, but it's really just another version of the magnet school concept already in wide use.

The footnote should explain where the " 90 million, who are no longer looking for work" number comes from. It is the "not in the workforce" number from the Department of Labor Statistics, and it includes retirees (over 40 million), disabled (about 10 million) and students over age 16 (there are more than 20 million full-time college students in the United States- some with full-time jobs, but many not looking for jobs that would count toward the number of the fully employed). What matters is not that giant number, it is the number of people actively seeking work unsuccessfully and the number who were searching for work but gave up looking because they couldn't find any. The size of that group more accurately reflects the strength or weakness of the economy.

If we are talking about black families then we need to look at the family. 75% of black children are born to unwed mothers. The number of single parent families where one of the parents has experienced incarceration

Whatever is good for the family is also good for the economic condition of the whole country. If dad is around to fix the plumbing then mom is free to monitor Johnny's homework. Not only does that save the family from the plumber but also shows Johnny that homework is important. Williams makes a great point yet, the dependency and poverty rate cannot help but be impacted by the state of the family.

If we were Communists where the state was the custodian of our children then we would have different dynamics. If that were the case then liberals could hardly be called "progressive" versus "regressive". Point being that once dependency becomes the norm then what breaks the dependence cycle? This question has not been addressed. Look at Detroit - we are now looking at whole communities where the populace is largely dependent on the rest of the nation.

Good point Bruce --- but in a politically correct society we can't say that?
Black Liberation Theology - Group Salvation thru group oppression.
The only way to heaven is to be weak and let someone oppress you.
The only explanation I have for why anyone lives under oppression!

Because only dads can "fix the plumbing...and mom can monitor homework"? Silly antiquated notion.
Williams on one hand laments the excuses given to African-Americans preposterously because of "the legacy of slavery" yet on the other hand infers that that is precisely why African-Americans excell in athletes supposedly because their coaches make excuses for them. What poppycock.
Evidently in Williams mind African-Americans are never justifiably successful.

It is probably sad that Mr. Williams usual racial and cultural spankings are lost on those he tries so hard to shame into change. I guess it is because he keeps pointing fingers in the wrong direction.

(for you Bubba)...Get the teachers union out of the picture and the quality of teachers will automatically and almost instantly improve.

I believe that a lot of what ails the black community can be attributed to the illegal drug trade in America. It's hard to fathom that the United States Government can't stop it. By seeking political gain for his party rather than taking an objective approach, BHO is missing a huge opportunity to positively impact the lives of black Americans for generations to come. The politicians have stood idly by and watched the traffic at the southern border. The human traffic, the human trafficking, and the drug traffic.

Texas is one of five states that prohibit collective bargaining, and associations are not allowed to collect agency fees (automatic union dues payments). But even then, Texas’s state-level NEA and AFT affiliates see just $53 annually per teacher in the state—only the state association in South Carolina takes in less. If eliminating teacher's unions meant that "the quality of teachers will automatically and almost instantly improve," then we live in the best-taught public educational environment in the nation.

I may be wrong, but I believe that the quality of teachers is dependent on very simple economics: the number and quality of aspiring teachers rises only if teachers' pay levels rise. Otherwise, the best and brightest students are most likely to go in more lucrative directions: computer science, information technology, medical and law schools. Teaching has non-economic issues as well: class size, disciplinary issues, mandatory curricula and testing, paperwork, etc., but better pay gets better applicants.

So when did the context of this particular commentary become specific to Texas? Walter Williams never mentioned Texas. Bubba, you never mentioned it in your initial post either.

It doesn't matter anyway. If 100% of the teachers were first class and excellent in every way, the responsibility would never fall upon the student. It's always someone else's fault and more taxpayer dollars are what is required.

When will you stop making excuses? Folks need to learn that they need to stop digging. The hole is just getting deeper.

Hello, my name is Elbert Lee Guillory and I’m the Senator for the 24th District right here in beautiful Louisiana. Recently I made what many are referring to as a ‘bold decision’ to switch my party affiliation to the Republican Party.

I wanted to take a moment to explain why I chose to become a republican, and also to explain why I don’t think it was a bold decision at all. It is the right decision, not only for me but for all my brothers and sisters in the Black Community.

You see, in recent history, the Democrat Party has created the illusion that their agenda and their policies are what’s best for black people.

Somehow it’s been forgotten that the Republican Party was founded in 1854 as an abolitionist movement with one simple creed that slavery is a violation of the rights of man. Frederick Douglass called the republicans the ‘Party of Freedom and Progress’, and the first republican president was Abraham Lincoln, the author of the Emancipation Proclamation.

It was republicans in congress who authored the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments; giving former slaves citizenship, voting rights and due process of law.

Democrats, on the other hand, were the party of ‘Jim Crow’. It was democrats who defended the rights of slave owners.

It was the republican president Dwight Eisenhower who championed the ‘Civil Rights Act of 1957’, but it was the democrats in the senate who filibustered the bill.

You see, at the heart of liberalism is the idea that only a great and powerful big government can be the benefactor of ‘Social Justice’ for all Americans.

But the left is only concerned with one thing: control. And they disguise this control as charity. Programs such as welfare, food stamps – these programs aren’t designed to lift black Americans out of poverty. They were always intended as a mechanism for politicians to control the Black Community.

The idea that blacks, or anyone for that matter, need the government to get ahead in life is despicable. And even more important, this idea is a failure. Our communities are just as poor as they have always been. Our schools continue to fail children. Our prisons are filled with young black men, who should be at home, being fathers.

Our self-initiative and our self-reliance have been sacrificed in exchange for allegiance to our overseers, who control us by making us dependent on them.

Sometimes I wonder if the word ‘Freedom’ is tossed around so frequently in our society that it has become a cliché. The idea of freedom is complex and it’s all encompassing. It’s the idea that the economy must remain free of government persuasion. It’s the idea that the press must operate without government intrusion, and it’s the idea that the emails and the phone records of Americans should remain free from government search and seizure. It’s the idea that parents must be the decision-makers in regards to their children’s education, not some government bureaucrat.

But most importantly, it is the idea that the individual must be free to pursue his or her own happiness. Free from government dependence and free from government control, because to be truly free is to be reliant on no one other than the author of our destiny.

These are the ideas at the core of the Republican Party and it is why I am a republican. So my brothers and sisters of the American Community, please join with me today in abandoning the ‘Government Plantation’ and the ‘Party of Disappointment’ so that we may all echo the words of one republican leader who famously said, “Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.”

Thanks for the condescension Mr. Williams. Once again we get the old singsong story from the Right that they are somehow more responsible, better citizens, and "by God" better Americans than those on the Left.

Maybe if Williams and the rest of you got down off your high ponies for two seconds you might begin to understand why your ideas don't appeal to black people.

You said, "Get the teachers union out of the picture and the quality of teachers will automatically and almost instantly improve." You said it, not Mr. Williams. I chose the most obvious example of the fallacy of your idea, and the one with which readers on this website are most familiar: Texas. As with any hypothesis, it only takes one absolute disproof to negate the validity of the idea. There is no need for more examples.

Do strong teachers' unions in some states exert influence which negatively affects the quality of the teacher cohort? Yes- but that's not what you said. If Texas indeed has minimal influence by teachers' organization, no collective bargaining, no right to strike and no involuntary collection of uni0n dues, it would have to have excellent teaching for your hypothesis to be valid.

Ask Walter Williams why conservative ideas do not appeal to black people. He writes books on the subject. He has written hundreds of syndicated columns on the subject. He knows everything there is to know about it. Hell, he even claims that he used to BE black! ROFL!

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